Temperature
by SkItZoFrEaK
Summary: Shino probably just wasn’t in the habit of talking any more than necessary, but he was going to have to make an effort for her sake, Tenten decided.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **I needed to write something uncomplicated to make up for the craziness of the last Middle Ground chapter. This story is a response to the prompt 'Winter' at the Shino/Tenten FC, and it is going to be (at least) three parts long, because I am temporarily incapable of one-shots. And it's also probably going to end up being a series of shameless cliches. Strangely, this does not bother me nearly as much as it should.

Goals: Faster, funnier, fluffier.

Warnings: Sometimes, I write romances.

Temperature

Part 1

"Every mile is two in winter."

- George Herbert

* * *

It started with snow.

Tenten woke up that morning colder than she could ever recall being in her life, probably due to the fact that she was half covered in snow. Fortunately, the fact that she could still feel cold was a good sign. It meant she hadn't lost any important limbs to frostbite - yet. Tenten struggled out of her snow-covered sleeping bag and used her chakra to get on top of the building white mounds, blinking away the thick flakes that clung to her eyelashes. Crap, she thought irritably, brushing the powder from her shoulders and chest and pulling her fur-lined hood up more securely over her head. Welcome to the Glacier Country, Tenten, have a complimentary blizzard for your journey. She fished out her waxed map and checked her position by the nearest mountain peaks visible in the thick, silent sheets of falling snow. Luckily, she was only about a few hours more from her destination, a good-sized town that went by the unlikely name of Heavenly Veils.

Stuffing her sleeping bag and map back into her bag and orienting herself in the correct direction, Tenten ran lightly over the white landscape. She would have to stop using her chakra and slog through the snow like a normal traveling craftsman once she was in sight of the town. She couldn't blow her cover and reveal her shinobi abilities by staying nice and dry on top of it. But there was no reason not to cheat a little out here, where no one was around to see. Plus, it would get her there that much sooner before the nightfall. She'd been warned never to be caught outside at night in the Glacier Country's winter season, and if the bitter temperatures of last night had been any indication, she had a pretty good idea why.

As she ran, she mentally reviewed the mission scroll she had received a week ago before heading north into this frozen wasteland. A large, powerful gang called the Blue Torch was running amok in the country, ruling through a shadowy network of thugs, corrupt government officials, drug and human trafficking, and extortion. The wealthy gang also hired shinobi from villages such as Hidden Mist, Grass, and Stone to act as bodyguards for their important leaders or their caravans of smuggled items. In desperation, the ruler of Glacier Country had finally sent a message to Konoha to ask for help in destroying the gang. Months of work and several Leaf shinobi in several different undercover positions had discovered that the hub of Blue Torch's operations was centered in Heavenly Veils, where their Council controlled the gang (and through them, the country).

Tenten paused to check her map once more, taking the opportunity to read the precise, careful handwriting of the mission report from the Leaf shinobi already stationed in Heavenly Veils. Aburame Shino had been in the town for over a month now, and had successfully integrated himself into the gang as a hired shinobi guard, though he had yet to discover the exact whereabouts or identities of the five ruling members. As a footnote to the report, Shino had also written a plan to discover the exact path of several smuggling routes, which would allow the Leaf to simultaneously shut down all their smuggling operations.

"The primary export of the Blue Torch is illegal weapons sold to neighboring countries," he had written. "A skilled weapon-smith is considered a high-value item by the Council, and one found in Heavenly Veils will not be overlooked."

Thus Tenten, one of the few shinobi in Konoha who could make a kunai as well as she could throw one, found herself trudging through the frozen wastes in the middle of the worst traveling season, headed to a vicious gang's stronghold to play the part of Skilled Weapon-smith. Thanks, Aburame, she thought with a resigned sigh. What's left of my toes will be forever in your debt.

She skidded suddenly on a patch of snow-dusted ice, sliding down a few feet of the rocky slope before managing to catch herself. She shook her head and berated herself for letting her mind wander; the mountains were a dangerous place at the best of times, and this certainly was not one of those. Her near-fall had taken her around a rocky outcropping, however, and when she looked up from the ground she saw the smoke of several chimneys winding through the falling snowflakes. At last, she thought, taking a deep breath and letting herself sink into the snow up to her knees. Time to get into character, and out of the cold.

* * *

"It is a humble place," the landowner – an enormous man calling himself Boss Yan - told her in a manner indicating that anywhere he personally graced with his presence was anything but humble. "It serves its purpose, however, and I'm sure you will be comfortable."

Tenten smiled up at the huge man. "Well, I'm a humble person, sir. It'll do just fine."

Boss Yan rumbled a laugh at her, pleased with the subservient tone she had adopted as soon as she met him. He was a real giant, almost seven feet tall and rippling with muscle. They were show muscles however, Tenten saw with an experienced eye, designed to impress but not trained to do anything but lift something heavy in short repetitions for hours. Big, bulky, and slow, she thought clinically. He wasn't stupid, though, and he had made a point of telling everyone they passed on the way to the forge that this was the new weapon-smith. It had looked like just a jolly-new-neighbor act, but Tenten saw at least four of the people he'd introduced as 'friendly locals' wearing the Blue Torch emblem. By now, news of her arrival had probably already made it to the shadowy Council, and Boss Yan never had to let her out of his sight to do it. Not bad.

The building was indeed humble – most of it was taken up by the forge itself, but there was one more small room and a bathroom on one side, and a little kitchen-type area on the other. Even in the middle of the day it was cold in here, although she figured the forge at least would be cozy when it was lit and running. I'll have to sleep in the forge room, she realized, glancing at the side room and seeing that it was mostly full of supplies and scrap metal. It looked like what the previous smith had done, too. It was probably just too cold at night to sleep anywhere else but by the forge fires.

"Rent will be paid at the start of every month," Boss Yan told her, folding his arms pleasantly and smiling. "That will be collected by the enforcers."

Tenten set her pack down by the door and brushed her hood back, shaking off the snow still stubbornly clinging to her jacket. "Enforcers?"

"Oh, just local men who will swing by from time to time to make sure all's well," he said in that same ominously pleasant tone. "There will be representatives of some people who are very interested in your work, too. People who could offer you a wonderful patronage if you're smart," he added, looking down at her from his high-set, beady eyes.

"Ah," Tenten replied carefully, moving across the room to inspect the forge itself. "I see."

"And then of course there's the bodyguard."

Tenten looked up from a row of hammers sharply. "Bodyguard?" She hoped the edge to her voice could be discounted as mere surprise. Damn! A bodyguard could be a potential problem. If the gang assigned someone to watch her all the time, how could she communicate with Shino? And worse, what if this guard was knowledgeable about weapons? Then her plans to 'mark' the weapons would be in jeopardy as well.

"This is a dangerous part of the world, smith," Boss Yan was saying. "Lots of unsavories around, if you catch my drift. And the patrons I was mentioning would just hate for you to get hurt before they get a chance to see what you can do."

Unsavories, Tenten thought darkly. Yeah, and I wonder how many of them answer directly to you, _Boss_ Yan.

"Not to worry," the gangster went on, waving a hand at someone just outside the door. "My boy here does good work. I have great confidence in him."  
Another man stepped through the doorframe, and Tenten had to bite back the sudden laugh that bubbled up in her throat. Well, what a coincidence, she wanted to say. So do I.

"So I take it he'll be staying here with me then, sir?" she said instead.

"That would be best for everyone," Boss Yan agreed congenially. "Although I may have to borrow him back from time to time. You know how it is, business and all."

"Of course." Tenten bowed her head respectfully. "I guess I'd better get started then, if these patrons you mentioned are so interested in my work."

"Wonderful. Good luck, and please do your best." The gangster turned to go, flashing one more polite smile at Tenten's new bodyguard. "You as well, my boy. I'll expect you to check in with me every morning, just to keep on top of things."

"Yes, sir," Aburame Shino replied.

The door swung shut, and Tenten shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. "So tell me," she said, turning and hunting for the wood pile. "Did you set the bodyguard thing up yourself or did you let them think it was their idea?"

"The wood is stored in the kitchen," Shino told her. "You would do well to start the fires now and warm the building as much as you can. Why the rush? Because it will be nightfall in an hour."

"Really?" Tenten looked out the window in alarm, noting that it was indeed starting to get dusky outside. "It's barely afternoon!"

"The days are very short here in winter."

"Right, right, got it. Okay, so – fire, food, then weapons?"

He nodded. "Your work will be inspected by a mid-level Blue Torch official tomorrow. If he is pleased, they will send a party of…" he paused thoughtfully, "individuals, who will impress upon you the rectitude of working for them."

"Blue Torch thugs will come threaten me to work for them or else," Tenten translated dryly.

Shino nodded, leaning back against the wall by the door and watching her hauling a small pile of wood from the kitchen to the forge. "Since it is imperative to our plan that the gang does hire you," he said, "you must present an acceptable example of your work to the official."

Tenten shot a glare at him over the small, smoky fire she was coaxing into life. "I always do good work, Aburame," she told him sharply, miffed at the implication that her work was anything but excellent even when a mission didn't depend on it. After all, the Hokage wouldn't have sent her if she wasn't the most suitable for the job, right?

Shino did not reply, but his head bowed slightly as she turned with a huff back to her forge. Tenten wondered what he was thinking – if he regretted the remark, or was irritated by her reaction, or if it he'd even noticed her retort. He was a very difficult man to read, and not just because his face was mostly hidden all the time. Tenten watched him from the corner of her eye as she shucked off her heavy jacket and gloves and headed for the store room to check out her new materials. She was a little discomfited by the way he stood perfectly still - even Neji had a tendency to shift his weight or fiddle with his sleeves in an absent minded way, and Lee and Gai never even stood in one spot longer than a few seconds, let alone without moving. So he gave her very little body language to judge by, and since he didn't waste words too often, she didn't have too many vocal cues to work with either. Inspired by the chilly air and her recent trek through frozen nowhere, Tenten mentally pictured a thick, solid wall of ice around him, not only shutting him effectively off from the world but making it difficult for the world to even see him through it.

Man, and she had thought Neji was about as solitary and aloof as it got. But then, he had Gai and Lee (and herself) to constantly pester and draw him out. Shino's teammates were more likely to respect his space than insert themselves into it (well, maybe Inuzuka would, but for him it would be more about challenging Aburame, not making him act more social). Shino probably just wasn't in the habit of talking any more than necessary.

Well, he was going to have to make an effort for her sake, Tenten decided firmly as she sifted through neat piles of metals and ores. With any luck they wouldn't be up here for more than a couple months, but that was still a long time to be on her own. And 'on her own' was essentially what she would be if she respected his space as much as she imagined he expected. "So what do you think I should make for this Blue Torch official?" she called through the store room door. "It'll have to be something simple if I need it done by tomorrow."

"Knives are generally popular," he responded after moment. "Why are they preferred by smugglers? They are relatively lightweight, easily concealed, and while some countries ban citizens from carrying swords, anyone can carry a knife."

"Okay, what kind of knife?"

Shino didn't answer for a long time, long enough for Tenten to turn and stick her head back out the door and look at him. "Shino?"

"I do not know what you mean by 'kind'," he said.

"You know, are we talking throwing knife, hunting knife, long blade, curve blade, stub tang, tanto – what?"

"It does not matter."

"What?" Tenten frowned at him and turned back to the store room materials. "Of course it matters. You can't just say 'make a knife,' and leave it at that. That's like saying 'make some clothing' but not specifying what the form or function of the clothing is. That's how you end up with a sunhat when you need snowshoes, or something - whoa!" Tenten yelped as a pile of precariously balanced metal ingots suddenly cascaded down almost on her feet with a loud clatter.

Shino appeared behind her in the door way. "Are you injured?" A soft buzzing noise underscored his voice, and Tenten saw with surprise that several of his kikkai were scattered throughout the room. They had been sitting quietly at their various posts, so she hadn't noticed them until they started up their agitated buzz. The racket must have disturbed them, she figured. "Tenten, are you injured?" Shino said again, stepping a little closer.

"Huh?" She jolted back to attention and waved a hand at him. "Oh no, I'm – oh, hey, look, is that purified Amaranth Steel? Sweet! So anyway, we'll just have to guess at what kind of knives this Blue Torch guy would like and see what happens," she said over her shoulder as she waded through the little puddle of rolling metal ingots to the stack of thin, purplish-blue metal that had been hidden behind the now-scattered pile. "Unless you think you can find out what impresses him before he comes."

"I do not believe that any Blue Torch member will particularly know the difference between a hunting knife and a tanto," Shino answered. "But I will check tomorrow to see who is coming, and if he has a preference." There was a slightly admonishing note in his voice, probably because he felt she was implying his fact-finding skills wouldn't be up to the task. Tenten grinned a little to herself, because that had been exactly what she was doing. Tit for tat, Aburame, she thought. Now we're even.

He didn't respond much to her attempts at conversation after that, as she set up the forge, checked the tools, and selected her materials. He mostly just sat in a chair against the back wall with one foot propped up another chair and his hands deep in his pockets, making small noncommittal noises or answering her questions with short, efficient responses. But he gave a good impression of listening intently, so Tenten found herself enjoying the company anyway.

"Okay, I think I've got it," she told him at length. "I'm going to make a mahkaira."

"What's a makky-hair-ah?" A new voice said from the door, and Tenten glanced up to see a teenage boy and an older girl entering the forge, stomping the snow from their boots and shaking back thick headscarves. The boy was early teens, wearing shabby clothes but a fierce expression that dared anyone to comment on it. The girl was late teens though she had a petite frame that made her look younger. She was much better dressed and fairly pretty, but her face was marred by slightly too much makeup applied by an inexperienced hand. And they were both, Tenten noted, wearing the emblem of the Blue Torch.

The boy stomped over to the forge and rudely stuck his face near Tenten's hands, examining her work. "Hey now," Tenten caught his shoulder and pulled his head back from the forge before his swinging scarf could catch fire. "Watch out, this is no place to play around."

"I'm not playing," he retorted snottily. "I'm a Blue Torch, and this is my turf. I gotta make sure everybody here's on the burner."

"On the what?"

"He means you're not going to cause any trouble," the girl translated haughtily, flipping her blue-black hair back over her shoulder with a practiced move. "Gang slang. The loser thinks he's an enforcer."

"I _am_," the boy shot back, hands clenched. "Boss Yan said so!"

"Uh huh," the girl rolled her eyes, then focused them on the figure against the wall. "Hi, Shino," she said sweetly. "I haven't seen you around in _ages_. It's been so depressing and lonely."

Tenten raised an eyebrow over her head at her fellow shinobi, but his face was tilted down deeper than ever into his high collar. He made no move to respond to either of them, and Tenten fought the urge to laugh. Hiding in plain sight, she thought almost fondly. For all this girl knows, you're asleep in there. Heck, even I'm not completely sure. Although if anyone was looking at me like that – she eyed the almost sickly expression on the girl's face, a poorly executed version of wounded puppy dog eyes – I'd probably pretend to go into an immediate coma too.

Of course, just because she felt a little sympathy for his situation didn't mean she couldn't exploit the hell out it. "Oh, you know each other?" She asked sweetly. "How did you meet?"

"He works for Boss Yan," the boy told her, now poking at the largest set of tongs with a finger. Tenten reached over and snagged his wrist, pulling him away with a warning look. He scowled and stuck his hands into his pockets. "She's his niece."

"Uncle says you'll be staying at the forge now," the girl pouted at Shino, who still had not twitched a single muscle. "But you'll still come see us every day, right? Promise you won't stay away for too long?"

"Well, he'll be here quite a bit," Tenten said peaceably. "You can always swing by to say hello."

To her surprise, the girl swung around and glared daggers at Tenten. "So why does he have to stay with _you_?" She demanded. "And how come you're a girl? The last smith was just an old ugly guy and _he_ didn't get a bodyguard. Why do _you_ need one?"

Tenten resisted the urge to snap that she certainly did _not_ need a bodyguard, but she would not be goaded into inadvertently giving up any information on herself, least of all by a soppy little girl with a bad lipstick job. "Shino has been appointed by your uncle," she said evenly. "And your uncle has the right to direct his subordinates however he chooses."

"You better be respectful," the girl muttered in a threatening way. "Shino's a fighter, he'll knock you on your ass if you try anything."

Tenten shot Shino another quick look, which he thoroughly ignored. Forget asleep, she thought, the man might well be _dead_ in there. Feel free to cut in here, Shino, she told him mentally. She's not _my _groupie, I shouldn't have to deal with her.

"Aw, shut up, Yula," the boy groaned. "Don't be so retarded."

"_You're_ retarded, Kam," the girl shot back. "Don't interrupt grownup conversations."

"So tell me," Tenten interrupted, desperately trying to keep a neutral expression on her face, "do you both live near here?"

"Why? You trying to get information on Blue Torch guys? You a spy or something?" The boy crossed his arms and gave her his fiercest expression yet, which unfortunately made him look a little bit like an irate hedgehog. The fact that his fluffy brown hair had picked up a lot of static from his head scarf and was therefore sticking out in random tufts did not help.

Tenten crossed her arms right back and said coolly, "Since you're too busy being rude to notice, I wanted to draw your attention to the setting sun. I'm new around here, but I've been told it's a bad idea to be out at night."

Kam jumped, and even the girl dragged her simpering eyes away from Shino long enough to look out the window and frown. "Crudsicles," the boy said passionately. "C'mon, Yula, the clouds are already building up. Stop making stupid faces at that guy and let's go." There was a note of worry in his voice that even his tough-guy act couldn't hide, though.

"Does it really get that bad?" Tenten asked.

"It's early in the winter season so it's not so rough now," Kam told her as Yula carefully wrapped her head scarf, leaving her pretty face as exposed in Shino's direction as long as she could. "But once midwinter sets in, there'll be really bad snow storms every night. People who get caught outside die."

"Good to know," Tenten replied. "Travel safe, you two."

"Don't get any funny ideas," the boy shot back ominously, wrapping his scarf around his face. He pointed to his eyes, then at Tenten. "I'll be watching you."

"Bye-bye, Shino," the girl trilled in a slightly muffled voice through her own scarf, "I'll miss you bunches!" And with a sudden blast of cold air from the open door, they left.

Tenten bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder.

"Don't," Shino warned.

"I'm not saying a thing," Tenten replied quickly, but she couldn't stop the smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: I'm not dead, despite all appearances to the contrary. Anyway, this chapter went longer than I thought it would and didn't actually end up where I wanted it to. This is due to my excessive need to cover all the bases, have more detail than is necessary, and insert Original Characters. Which I then kill. Sometimes. I hope to have the next few parts of this out this weekend. I want to finish this piece, because I said I would about a month ago.

Goals: Coherency, continuation, relevance.

Warnings: Repetitive themes and possible cliches.

* * *

**Temperature**

**Part 2**

It started with the fire.

Tenten woke up in the middle of the night to find that she had instinctively rolled so close to the forge in her sleep that she was practically in it. And while that meant the front of her body was acceptably warm, her backside was _freezing_. She shivered and huddled deep into her blankets and jacket (which she had opted to wear to bed as extra fortification against the chill) and tried to think warm thoughts. Drowsily, she turned her head and looked at Shino, who was sleeping a few feet away on the other side of the fire. He was lying on his side as well with his face to the fire and his head pillowed on his arm.

Funny, she thought blurrily - she'd expected to see him stretched flat on his back with his hands folded, laid out stiff and formal with no regard for the temperature. She wasn't entirely sure why she'd expected that, but there it was anyway. She blinked to clear her sleep-fogged eyes a little and noticed that he'd bundled a couple of his blankets into a bulky roll and set it firmly against his back. Ah, she thought, very clever. He had given himself extra insulation for the part of his body farthest from the fires. Not much, since he kept most of the blankets for cover, but maybe enough to keep him from shivering himself awake as she had done.

Tenten considered doing the same, but she couldn't decide which blankets to sacrifice as a roll and which to keep as covers. She shivered again and with a sleepy, irritable sigh, scooted a few centimeters closer to the fire. Outside, the howling winds shook the reinforced shutters and slammed against the insulated walls, and just listening to the racket somehow made her feel that much colder.

What a waste of blankets, Tenten thought idly, to have them just bundled up instead of as cover. But without them, his back would be cold too. Huh. And then an idea came to her groggy brain with sudden clarity. Moving as quickly as she could, Tenten jumped out of her little nest and hauled it over towards Shino. She saw his shoulders stiffen slightly as the noise and movement woke him instantly. "It's me," she whispered reassuringly. "It's freezing in here."

"Use your chakra to warm yourself," he replied without moving.

"That's a field mission short fix. We can't do it the whole time we're up here," she replied, tossing her blankets down half behind him, half on him. He jerked his head up slightly in surprise, but before he could react further, Tenten grabbed his rolled up blankets, shook them over the pile, and promptly burrowed down into the nest and settled herself in their place against his back. It took a few moments for the little hollow among the blankets to heat up, but Shino's back was blissfully warm and after a moment Tenten stopped shivering and sighed in relief as the heat seeped through her. "Oh, that's way better," she mumbled into the soft blankets.

Granted, Shino was between her and the fire, but with his blankets added to hers and his body heat through the layers, she had no complaints. The only hitch in the plan was the extraordinary tension she could feel in his muscles even through both of their heavy jackets. "Hey," she shrugged a shoulder backwards to nudge him. "Ease up. It's hard to sleep with you all tense like that."

"Apologies," he said in a slightly edgy tone. "I was not expecting to be your personal heater."

"Hey, _I'm _more likely to keep your back warm than a couple rolled up blankets," she shot back. "It's not like this is a one way exchange."

"Hm," he grunted, but after a few more minutes she did feel him relax a little. Poor guy, she thought drowsily; I'm really not respecting his space at all. But she pushed her sock-covered feet against the backs of his knees anyway, enjoying the warmth that trickled through. It was hard to feel all that remorseful when the alternative was cold toes.

It seemed like she'd hardly closed her eyes when she woke again to Shino moving against her back. He rolled quickly out of the pile of blankets, deftly tucking them back around her shoulder, but it was too late, the moment he moved her back felt chilled, and even his body-warmed side of the nest couldn't replace his actual body heat. Tenten sighed grumpily and resigned herself to getting up for the day as well. It was still dark, but she was learning that daylight here wasn't really a good indicator of time anyway.

"The Blue Torch will be here shortly before nightfall," Shino crouched by the fire and threw some more wood onto it. "That gives you six or so hours to make an acceptable weapon for his inspection."

"Mm," Tenten rolled over to look up at him from among the blankets. He was studiously not looking at her, which probably meant he still felt a little awkward about her casual intrusion on his space. Tenten hunted for a way to dispel the awkwardness, and then grinned slyly. "Hey Shino," she said, propping herself up on one elbow. He looked at her over his shoulder, and she affected a serious expression. "You have bed hair," she told him gravely. "Just thought you should know."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yep. It's pretty crazy," she added, trying not to laugh.

He rose to his feet and stuck his hands into his pockets. "Thank you," he said solemnly. "I hope it is as impressive as yours."

Tenten's hand flew to her head, but all she felt was her usual two neat buns, with only a few escaping wisps. "Oh, very funny."

* * *

Tenten spent the first half hour or so of the day moving briskly from place to place within the forge, wolfing a quick breakfast and getting her materials gathered. After the biting cold of the morning air in the Glacier Country ("Motto: no one needs _ten_ toes!" she laughed to Shino through slightly chattering teeth), the waves of heat pouring off the forge were sheer bliss. Tenten, in the interest of not setting herself on fire, reluctantly shucked off her heavy jacket and rolled back her sleeves. Fortunately, within the first hour she was working hard enough over the forge flames that she didn't need them anyway.

Shino vanished while she was busy melting down her alloys. He reappeared a few hours later with a few bags full of food, and handed Tenten a steaming hot roll of meat stuffed into thin bread with some sort of white sauce. Tenten downed it absently while she graphed her creation. "This is tasty," she remarked to Shino, frowning as a splatter of the white sauce dripped onto her paper and leaning over to swipe it off with her free hand. Hmm, she thought, looking at the figures under her sauce-covered finger. I better over-compensate a little for the shrink rule; the iron would harden faster in these ambient temperatures than she was used to seeing.

"The official will arrive an hour before sunset," Shino replied, catching her wrist before she accidentally dropped the rest of her meat roll in the forge fire. "You chose wisely," he nodded to her sketch. "I did a little research at Boss Yan's office. The Blue Torch official assigned to...deal with you has a predilection for exotic things. A weapon with unusual lines will impress him a great deal."

Tenten glanced up long enough to smile. "You know that was a little unnecessary. I've already got the alloy set up and the design plan, it's too late to start making anything other than a mahkaira now."

Shino inclined his head. "Then you may at least rest at ease that you were right to do so," he replied.

"And your reputation as a master of information-gathering remains unchallenged," she laughed and bent her head mockingly. "Okay, okay, I bow to your greatness and all." She stepped sideways and bumped him playfully with her shoulder. "Now get outta the way and let a girl work."

Shino moved to sit against the back wall again, slumped in the same chair as before and showing as little inclination to move. Tenten spared a moment to wonder if he was really sleeping in there – maybe he napped all the time like that. He could well be even lazier than Nara Shikamaru, with no one the wiser.

Then she saw that the alloy was developing a slight bluish-black hue, which meant the chemical composition was reaching the right acidity. After that, her head was full of comparative weights, compound ratios, and heat differentials. At some point she registered Shino getting up and going out the front door, and later he came back again with something else that was hot and filling that he put in her hand without a word. She muttered a vague thank you, but the hilt-joining reached a crucial conjunction and she didn't hear his reply.

Finally, she was finished. Whew, she thought, leaning back on her heels and surveying her work as it gleamed in the fading daylight. "Well, that's that," she told Shino, who had walked back in almost the instant she'd set the finished mahkaira down.

Tenten did a quick sensory sweep and noted that he had at least a dozen kikkai in her immediate vicinity to keep an eye on her, which explained his excellent timing. "So," she nodded to the curved blade. "Think the Blue Torch guy will like it?"

Shino stepped closer to the forge and examined her handiwork gravely. Then he shrugged. "We will soon know for sure. That's because he is on his way here."

Tenten jumped slightly. "What? You should have said something! Hang on -" she grabbed a rag and wiped vigorously at the blade, getting the few stray ashes from the forge off the hilt, and then chucked her forge apron in the store room. It was too late to change clothes or wash up, but she forced herself to stick her grubby hands under the cold water from the facet and get the oil and soot from under her fingernails.

"It is a fine piece," Shino said with what may have been a hint of amusement at her scramble. "That's all the official will care about. There is no need to concern yourself with anything else."

"Presentation is half the equation," she replied firmly, rubbing her now-cold hands vigorously on a towel and folding them tightly under her arms to rewarm them. "And you're the one who impressed upon me the need to sell myself to this Blue Torch guy," she glared at him over her shoulder.

"Perhaps," he chuckled, then abruptly walked to the back of the room and took up his favorite chair. "However, once you have impressed the official, you may wish to," he paused and glanced at the setting sun through the window, "reassess your timeline," he said at length.

Tenten stretched a stiff neck muscle and nodded. "I know. I can't take as long with my future orders if I want this mission to work. Fortunately, now that I have the design specifications and a better feel for how this forge works," she smiled fondly at the anvil-stone, "I can make lots of mahkaira in a much shorter time span. And if the Blue Torch really gets on me for time, I can substitute pig iron for alloy. Its lower quality, but it'll work for our plan."

She started to say more, but Shino held up a cautionary hand. A moment later, the front doors swung open, and a tall, thin man strode into the room, unwrapping his scarf to reveal sharp features. His eyes remained hidden behind dark sunglasses, but Tenten was already too acclimated to Shino to be particularly intimidated. What made her nervous were the four heavily muscled, heavily armed individuals who followed him in. They ranged themselves around the forge like professionals, standing calmly and impassively looking at nothing. They weren't shinobi as far as she could tell, but she was undercover and unable to fight back without blowing the mission. And just because they were not shinobi didn't mean they weren't very dangerous. She saw one of them wearing brass knuckles, another sporting several file-knives holstered on his jacket, and one even had a blood-stained cudgel hanging opening from his belt. All of them wore either dark glasses or strange headbands with wooden slats that could be lifted or lowered over the face, with little slits cut in them. Of course, Tenten realized; this was how they kept from going snow-blind in winter. No wonder Shino blended in so well up here.

Tenten focused back on the thin official; if he held the reigns on these thugs (and potentially many more like them), then he was the most dangerous man in the room. The official barely looked at her, however, reaching down gingerly to pick up the mahkaira and holding it up to his face. He turned it this way and that, studying it. "We will pay ten silver per knife," he said suddenly, still not looking at her. "Our initial order will be two hundred, ready for shipment by midwinter."

Tenten arranged her face into surprise and outrage. Shino had prepared her for this, of course, but she was playing the part of a simple, honest weapon-smith. "Hey, who do you think you are?" she demanded angrily. "You can't just walk in here with a bunch of," she swept the guards with what she hoped was an adequate mix of fear and bravado, "_brutes_, and expect me to make quality items for the kind of pittance you're offering. Ten silver? You have any idea how much that is worth? And even if I were willing to work for that kind of cheap change, there's no way I could make two hundred in a _month._" She huffed, wondering if she ought to attempt to kick them out or if that would be overkill. She wanted to look offended and naive, not stupid.

The official smiled. It was not a nice smile. Tenten felt a little chill go down her spine, and she didn't have to fake her involuntary step backwards. "You will either make two hundred knives, with ten silver per knife," he said, "or you will _be_ cut two hundred times with a silver knife." He gestured, and the thug with multiple blades stitched all over his chest pulled a small, shiny dagger free. He whirled it with expert ease, then flung it at her. It took all of her concentration not to dodge or catch it and fling it back. Instead, she simply held herself still and allowed the sharp blade to slice her shoulder as it passed. She cried out and clapped a hand to the shallow, stinging cut.

"I…I can have the first order in three weeks," she mumbled, suitably cowed and compliant. "They won't be as well-made as this one, though." She said the last quickly, as if she were afraid to admit it yet still driven by her honor as a weapons-smith to do so.

The skinny Blue Torch official barked a short, brutal laugh. "That will do. In the interest of your _protection_," he laid a heavy emphasis on the word, raising a scraggly eyebrow at her over his dark glasses, "Our friend Shino here will be keeping an eye on you." He jerked his head over her shoulder, and Tenten heard Shino shift his weight.

"She is in my care," her fellow shinobi said quietly, but there was a deliberate note of menace in his tone. The Blue Torch official shot him a thin smirk of approval. Tenten bit back a giggle, feeling a bit like Shino had just let her in on a secret, right in front of a crowd. Quite the trick, she mused.

With a final warning glare at Tenten, the Blue Official yanked his head scarf sharply around his face again, and led the thugs out. They must have more people than we thought, Tenten reflected to herself, if they had enough spare muscle to parade around in front of newcomers like her. Unless this weapon-smuggling line they had going was more essential to their operations than Konoha thought. In which case, she would have to be extra-careful that the little something 'extra' she planned to add to the goods wasn't noticed.

"There are bandages in the kitchen," Shino said from behind her, startling her out of her reverie.

"Oh, right," she said, glancing at the blood leaking through her fingers on her shoulder. The wound was shallow, and she barely felt it after the initial sting. Good blade, she thought impassively. "Well, that went about as expected," she commented, turning and looking up at Shino's impassive face. "Seems I got the job."

"He is not normally a violent man," Shino replied. "At least, not directly. He prefers to have others do the work. I did not think he - " He paused, frowning. "His use of violence to frighten you was unexpected."

"This shipment must be important," Tenten nodded in agreement, pulling her shirt collar aside to reach the oozing cut. "Maybe it's just that they've been without a steady supply in awhile. They risk losing all their regular customers, if they can't provide regular weaponry."

"Hm," Shino grunted in what was probably agreement. He watched Tenten swipe away the blood from her shoulder and slap a bandage on, then took the box from her and set it back on the shelf. "In any case, we a re now poised to carry out the critical phase of the plan."

"You got that bug-juice stuff ready?" Tenten smiled at him to show she was joking, but he merely nodded.

"The scent-marker is prepped and ready. If applied while the knives are still being forged, the scent will become undetectable by any but my kikkai."

"Well, then it's perfect that you're stuck around here with me after all," she said cheerfully. "You can help me do it instead of me trying to follow your instructions or something. Which I bet you would have written in code, anyway."

Shino seemed about to reply, then abruptly turned away from her and vanished out the back door. Tenten stared after him, startled and wondering if she ought to be offended. A few seconds later, however, she heard voices outside the front door and rolled her eyes.

" – going yet, and anyway I want to see a maky-hair knife thing," a boy's voice, clearly irritated, carried through the door. Tenten sighed and straightened her shirt, wiping the last few drops of blood away. A moment later, the forge door burst open again and the boy from yesterday trekked in, the pretty girl in tow. Kam and Yula, Tenten reminded herself.

"Well, hello there," she said politely, stepping out of the kitchen and back into the forge. "Nice of you to stop by. Isn't it a little late in the day though?"

Kam scowled at her in what he probably thought was a very fierce and manly way. Tenten resisted the urge to laugh again. Yula, however, shot her a venomous glance through heavily-painted eyelids and then immediately turned her attention to the empty forge. "Where's Shino?" she demanded. "Cobby _said_ he was just here," her voice took on a peculiar, low whine, as if she were a small child on the verge of frustrated tears.

"Um, Cobby?" Tenten hazarded.

"Tall, skinny torcher," Kam offered, still fixing her with a glare. He probably thought he was squinting at her with a steely-eyed stare, but really he was just making one eye look slightly wider than the other in an unbalanced sort of way. Tenten sighed. She did not have time for this nonsense. Plus…Cobby? The Blue Torch official's name had been _Cobby? _No wonder he hadn't bothered with introductions. That sort of name lacked the appropriate amount of fear and awe a gangster usually needed to inspire.

"Well, Shino's not here now," Tenten told them matter-of-factly, walking to her forge and gently but firmly pushing Kam out of the way. The boy stumbled in surprise, but swallowed the squawk of outrage quickly enough and contrived to look like he'd stepped out of her way on purpose. Tenten adjusted her sleeves and reached for the forge bellows, pumping the fire back to working heat.

"You should call him Mister Shino," Yula told her, turning to glower again. "He's not _your_ friend. You can't be so familiar with him."

Interesting emphasis, Tenten noted. But she let it pass, turning to glance at Kam instead. "By the way, it's pronounced mahk-hair-a," she told him casually. "And it's sitting over there. Careful, it's still sharp."

"Where did Shino go?" Yula demanded, folding her arms as Kam sauntered a bit too eagerly across the room to examine the knife.

Tenten shrugged.

But the girl was relentless. "When will he be back_?_"

"Hey," Kam interrupted suddenly. "This is a good knife. You made this?" For once, his belligerent tone was gone, replaced only with surprise and a little bit of admiration. Tenten smiled at him over her shoulder.

"Put it down, Kam," Yula told him sternly. "It's not yours."

Tenten swung her melting pot back over the fire and added a handful of metal ingots to it. "You like it?"

"Yeah," he breathed, holding it up to watch the firelight glint on it. Then he seemed to shake himself, shrugging elaborately and making as if to flip it back on the table. "It's okay, I guess." But he didn't actually let it go, Tenten noted, watching from the corner of her eye as the boy flipped the handle around in his fingers a few times.

"Then it's yours," she said, and was rewarded by the shock and delight warring on the boy's face.

"Really? I mean, it looks really good." His face snapped suddenly into deep suspicion. "Hey, you're not trying to buy me off or anything, are you?"

Tenten did laugh, this time. "Let's call it my gift to you, for keeping such a good eye on me."

"You can't just _give_ it to him," Yula protested. "It's not _his._"

There is a child with serious possession issues, Tenten thought to herself. Briefly, she wondered if Yula had ever had something of her own taken away. Then she remembered Shino saying that Yula was the youngest of six, and wondered if the girl had ever had anything of her own, period.

"Sure I can," she said, careful to sound nonchalant. "I'm about to make a lot more just like it, so he can have that one."

"You're making more?" Kam walked over, peering around her at the forge with new interest. "Exactly like this one?"

"Well," Tenten gently elbowed him back from the flames and her hands, "not _exactly_."

Kam blinked at her. "What'll be different?"

"Oh, the materials I use, mostly. And I've got a mold now, made from that original one. The others will just be copies of it. They'll be different from the original in a lot of little ways," she added carelessly.

_For example_, she thought, _the original was just bait. _

_These are going to be the trap._


	3. Chapter 3

Notes: Ah-HAH! I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I _may_ have squeaked in under the deadline for the contest. Maybe. Ah well, it was fun to write anyway. This is all a bit rushed and I resorted to the old 'talking about what happened in the past tense while other stuff is going on now' trick (I'm sure there's an official word for that, but I can't remember it). I mostly just wanted to write the end scene. Is it sad that I thought that up on Valentine's Day? It's sort of the anti-romantic scene. I think. Whatever, it was fun to write. Go check out the Shino/Tenten forum for the other contest entries!

Goals: Coherent, interesting, plausible ending; with a side order of fluff.

Warnings: Mildly adult situation at the end. Oh, and death.

* * *

**Part 3**

It was a good plan, until it failed.

Tenten had worked diligently to craft the required two hundred short knives within the month period. It wasn't so difficult, once she'd worked out the right alloy ratios and made a handful of good, solid molds. The only really tricky part had been incorporating the small, complex sigil on the base of every blade. She could pass the symbols off as her personal signature, but in reality they were a carefully constructed, complicated seal that she and Shino had designed together. When the blades were cooled, hardened, and sharpened, Shino would add a special compound that Aburame kikkai could locate from miles away but was nearly undetectable by any other creature. With just a small infusion of both their chakra (his to activate the chemical, hers to seal it into the metal), the two hundred illegal knives would become instant beacons for any Aburame. No matter where the blades went in the world, the Leaf could track them – and those that bought and distributed them.

"You know, this will bring down more than just the Blue Torch," Tenten had commented excitedly, watching Shino infuse the first dozen blades with the chemical. "Depending on where these blades end up, we could be busting _dozens_ of little black market syndicates and smuggling chains."

Shino had nodded. "This was a fortuitous mission for Konoha," he said, handing her a marked blade. "Why? We will gain a reputation for large scale operations involving several countries and clients, illustrating our power, resources, and our long reach."

"And it'll make us enemies," Tenten had added with slightly less enthusiasm. "Lots of enemies. But hey," she'd perked up, "it's a good plan, right? So I'm not too worried."

Shino had looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked out the forge door to report to the gang leader he currently obeyed. "No plan survives contact with the enemy."

That had been only a week into her month-long time limit, and the only time they had spoken explicitly about their plan to bring down the Blue Torch's primary means of money (and thus, power). Yesterday, Tenten had finished the last of the two hundred blades, just as that Blue Torch official (she'd only _just_ restrained herself from calling him "Cobby" to his face) had slunk back in, demanding them. They were early, of course, by two full days. Had Tenten really been just a weaponsmith on a time-limit, she would not have been prepared. But Shino had warned her ahead of time, and anyway she'd been expecting this sort of trick. So she'd finished a day earlier, patiently pretended to be the outraged but frightened craftsman forced to do bad work in the name of greed, and watched quite happily as Cobby and his bulky henchmen trundled off with two hundred marked illegal goods.

Shino had waited until this morning to head into the northern end of town where a relay was set up to signal the waiting Aburame down south. They would pick up the wagonload of knives as soon as it exited the mountains and follow it to wherever the Blue Torch took their goods to sell, and then they would wait until the blades had been distributed to the customers. Once the blades were sold, the Aburame trackers would call in the backup teams, and it would only be a matter of cleanup. Of course, Tenten planned to be well away from the Glacier Country by then, snug and warm back in Konoha. As soon as Shino came back from the relay point, they would pack up their gear and vanish. The Blue Torch wouldn't look for them for a couple days at least, and by then the shipment would be too far for them to recall even if they did suspect something was wrong with it. Tenten smiled a little to herself as she scrubbed down the forge (no sense leaving it a mess for the next real weaponsmith to make it up here, right?); she was proud of their plan. Sure, Shino had come up with most of it, but he couldn't have pulled it off without her. He'd practically said as much one night, when she'd been grousing about the tedium of sharpening each blade when they were only going to be confiscated and destroyed.

Tenten was trying to remember exactly what he'd said after that – something about how he'd asked for her specifically because she understood the value of using the right tool – when the forge door burst open. "_You!_" a voice pitched with fear and anger yelled at her. Cold wind blasted against her exposed skin, but Tenten's attention was focused on the figure running straight for her, arms outstretched and eyes wide. She stepped forward, bracing her feet and slamming her palms into his shoulders, stopping his forward momentum neatly.

"Easy," she said, steadying him. "Now, what's going on?"

The boy Kam looked up at her with a confused expression of anger and fear. "Didja do it?" He demanded. "Didja tell those damn scorchers about the shipment? 'Cause if you did, Boss Yan's gonna _ice_ you. He's gonna chew you up an' spit you out an' leave you to _freeze_." His young face twisted suddenly into an oddly desperate expression. "_Didja do it?" _

In the back of Tenten's head, she was already listing the things she would need to grab to survive in the snow and mentally discarding what was unnecessary. The route home through the mountain pass would be clear until sunset, about two hours away. If she and Shino moved quickly, they could possibly get through it before the nightly snow storms closed it off. Shino was out in town still, but she might be able to reach him before Blue Torch thugs came for her. All this buzzed in her head, but her face and voice stayed pleasant and calm. "What are you talking about?" She asked. "Slow down and explain."

"Someone robbed the wagon, 'fore it even got through the pass," Kam jerked away from her grip and started pacing around the forge, tugging on his head scarf and gloves in a nervous, distracted way. "They took all the mahkaira," he slowed down a moment to say the word properly, a hint of pride in his voice, "and killed the guards and man, oh man, Boss Yan's gone _frigid" _

Tenten looked at him for a moment, noting the unusual paleness of his face and the little quiver in his voice. Most telling of all was the way his hand kept creeping back towards his pocket, where Tenten knew he kept the mahkaira she'd given him carefully hidden. _He's worried about me,_ she thought, and then amended it to, _he's worried _for_ me. _

"Kam," she said quietly, stepping forward and catching his arm as he paced by. "Why would you think I had anything to do with this?"

"They shouldn'ta known!" He burst out. "Boss Yan thinks it was those blasted Tarfeather Gang assholes down south who heard about the shipment, and they've wanted to take our turf for ages. But the wagon was supposed to go out tomorrow, and we shipped early so no one could set up an ambush but they figured it out." He stopped to catch his breath, and he shot her that look of desperation again, and she realized that the kid was mentally willing her not to be the betrayer, the one who had turned on his gang.

_You're too young to be mixed up in this shit_, Tenten thought with a surge of anger and sadness. _You're too young to be afraid that every new person who becomes your friend is actually an enemy just trying to infiltrate the only family you probably have. And you're way too young,_ she added bitterly, _to be right._

"And you think I told the Tarfeathers about the change in plan?" She asked, reaching back and picking up her combat gloves where they'd been warming by the forge fire.

Now Kam just looked miserable, a kid huddled in his too-large coat and hoping the world wasn't as bad as he feared it might be. "Didja?" he asked in a small voice.

"I've never heard of the Tarfeathers," Tenten told him honestly, hating herself a little as the relief spread across his features.

"I knew you were on the burner," he said triumphantly. "Don't worry, I'll tell Boss Yan for you. Him an' me, we're like _this_," he held up a gloved hand and made a clumsy attempt to cross his fingers. "I'll tell 'im you aren't mixed up in this."

"Oh, but I think she is, Kam," Boss Yan said serenely from the doorway, hands clasped in front of his broad chest in a seal. "She certainly no simple weaponsmith, anyway."

"What d'you mean, Boss - "

Kam's question cut off in a yelp of surprise and pain as Boss Yan spat a stream of sharp, glittering icicles at Tenten. One sharp, frozen edge sliced through the boy's shoulder enroute, leaving a deep bloody cut. But Tenten slammed into him a moment before another icicle could cut through his throat, throwing him to ground and rolling clear of his flailing arms in one smooth motion.

"He's one of yours," she accused, sinking into a crouch and summoning a handful of kunai. "You could have killed him."

Boss Yan merely smiled pompously. "It hardly matters," he settled into a new stance and raised his hands into another seal, "Shinobi."

On the floor, Tenten heard Kam give a little gasp of confusion and hurt, but then she had to duck to avoid another frozen salvo. She hurtled the kunai at Boss Yan, forcing the big man back, and screamed over her shoulder, "_Run_!"

Distantly she heard Kam curse, heard the mad scraping of his gloves and knees on the ground as he scrambled to get across the forge floor and outside. But most of her attention was on Boss Yan, and the wave after wave of sharp frozen daggers he kept pitching at her. He was good too – those big muscles might only be for show, but his aim was very precise and very fast.

Unfortunately for him, Tenten was faster. She pulled free a concealed scroll even as she ran up the forge wall, snapped it open as she flipped upside down and pushed off, and spinning expertly through the air, sent a wave of shuriken at him. Boss Yan jumped back, sending a matching wave of icicles out to smash each shuriken from the air midway. Tenten twisted her face away from him and covered her head just as the ice met steel.

_BOOM!_ The cold of the icicles activated the small temperature-triggered explosives she'd attached to the shuriken, and the multiple minor explosions combined into one huge shock wave that sent her sailing towards the back wall and threw Boss Yan backwards out into the snow. Tenten tapped the wall to change her direction and launched herself out after him, summoning a short scythe as she went and using her momentum to swing the blade in an arc around her body. Boss Yan rolled frantically away as she rocketed towards his large chest, but the edge of the scythe caught him across the back of the head and sent him crashing with a scream back to the frozen ground.

Tenten landed a few feet away, feet kicking up a spray of snow until she slid to a halt. She held the bloody scythe up defensively, watching Boss Yan stumble back to his feet. Blood poured down the big man's back, but he'd avoided the brunt of the blow. She hadn't managed to sever his spine or slice any major arteries. He lumbered around to face her, small eyes glaring at her balefully as he raised his huge hands again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap and merely twisted his hands into a seal. Tenten was already moving, flinging the scythe at him in a deadly spinning arc and drawing two long daggers. Boss Yan smashed away the scythe with another icicle, but then Tenten was on him, running lightly up his chest and slicing down with both blades as she flipped over his head to land behind him. Quicker than she expected, he summoned a spear of ice from the ground beside them and blocked her daggers, twisting his large body sharply to get her out of his blind spot and stab at her with the spear end.

She dodged, but her foot caught on the edge of a hidden patch of ice under the snow and slipped an inch. She caught herself instantly and slashed again with the blades, but in the half second she was unbalanced, he jabbed the spear forward and caught her just along the inside of her left arm. She felt a brief sting as the frozen spearhead cut through her sleeve and left a shallow red line of fire against her skin. Then she parried the spear away and danced in closer, inside the spear's range, blades whirling and flashing in the weak afternoon sunlight.

Boss Yan slammed the spear down at her head, forcing her to block with one blade. With a twist of his wrists, he jammed the spear against the sharp edge of the long dagger and neatly cut his ice spear in half. Now, like her, he had a deadly short range weapon in either hand, and his blows were slightly slower but also slightly stronger. Time to redefine the fight, Tenten decided. She threw herself forward and dropped to her knees, sliding neatly on the snow right under his next swing. He turned to follow her with both ice blades, but Tenten rolled forward and lashed backwards with one foot, catching a solid blow to his leg. The big gangster stumbled, and Tenten leaped up the side of the forge, perching on the roof. Now she had distance and the high ground, and she took advantage of both. She pulled out another small, concealed scroll and swiped her bloody finger along it, focusing her will and _calling_. Then she threw the scroll up into the air, over Boss Yan's head.

The gangster roared as six large, dark shapes burst out of the scroll and angled down at him. He threw up his hands and tried to send six corresponding icicles back, but the thin, sharp icicles were no match for the heavy, reinforced blades of Tenten's dadao greatswords. The monstrous steel blades shattered the icicles in passing and buried themselves - with a series of loud, wet, thumps - into the body of Boss Yan. The big man slumped, but the swords held him more or less propped up on a grisly sort of tripod, kneeling in the streets as the snow beneath him slowly stained red.

Tenten took a deep breath. _Shino_, she thought hazily. _I have to get to Shino._ He must have heard the boom, though, she thought as she jumped off the roof to the ground below. He should have been here within minutes of hearing that –

Her foot caught another patch of ice as she landed, and she slammed to the ground on her hands and knees, gasping in surprise. "Careful!" she admonished herself out loud, and then giggled. "Talk to myself," she explained to the corpse nearby. "Nobody to hear. Nobody here."

She giggled again, then cut it off sharply.

_Something's wrong with me,_ she realized. _My legs are really cold_. "That's because I'm still kneeling in snow," she said aloud, or tried to. The words sounded strange to her ears, like mumbling or another language. _What the hell…? _

Red. Something was red by her hand. Her hand was bleeding…no, not hand, arm. _Arm's cut_, she thought dispassionately. _Not bad. Feel kind of funny though._

She looked at the shallow cut on her arm. She looked at the silent, immobile body a few feet away. She looked at her arm again. _My arm's numb_, she thought fuzzily. And then, _oh. Oh, I get it._ She flailed, stumbling to her feet and staggering over to the propped up body.

"You bastard," she addressed the corpse, in as clear a voice as she could manage. Somewhere nearby, someone was shrieking, in a high-pitched girly voice. Tenten squinted in the direction she thought it was coming from, but all she could see was white and white and white and red and white. Someone in blurry white clothes was nearby, still shrieking, but Tenten had no time for that. "Shino," she told the shrieking person. "Gotta find Shino."

The person shrieked something more at her, jabbing a hand - hands? Too many hands, Tenten stopped trying to count and focused again on the face, only there was no face, just a scarf and screaming. "It's poison," she said, conversationally. "Not deadly, just disorienting. I think. Shino will know." Her words sounded slurred and funny, like someone with a deeper voice was trying to talk in hers, but they didn't know the language that well either. _I sound slurry and funny,_ she thought. _Slunny? Flurry? Hah._

"Gotta find Shino," she told the screamer. "It's furry."

The person screamed again, jabbing all those fingers. Tenten stepped away, slipping in the snow again. Slippery stuff, snow. White. Wet. And cold. She was really cold again. No fire, though. No Shino. "Shino," she said again, trying to get through to the screamer. But just noise, more finger jabbing, her ears hurt now. She turned around to look behind her, where the jabbing fingers were pointing. Maybe they were pointing at Shino?

White and white and white. But no red. She would go where there was no red. Maybe Shino would be there. She had to find him for…something. Something important. He could help her, that was it. Help her…help her….hmmm, she thought. Lost of things he could help with. Get me warmed up, that's for damn sure. She grinned, then stumbled on something white and white and…brown. Tree root, she thought vaguely. When did there get to be trees in the streets around here? But the screaming had stopped, anyway. That was nice. It had stopped awhile ago, hadn't it? She wasn't sure. Didn't matter. Her legs were cold. Her arms were cold. The cut on her arm hurt most, stinging and stinging like bees. She didn't like bees much, just then. But that's what she needed Shino for. He could make the bees stop stinging. He could…

She was so cold.

Something white reached out and grabbed at her feet again, and she struggled to avoid it, but the white reached up and wrapped itself all around her legs and waist and she floundered in it like a drowning woman in the sea but she was cold and tired now, and her arm was stinging and burning and she was starting to feel sick now, too. The wind was picking up, slicing into her cheeks and neck like blades, cutting through her clothes ruthlessly. Only her legs were spared, but that was because they were encased in white. Tenten stared down at her legs, buried up to her waist in white and it was cold, very cold, but not as cold as the knives in the air.

She leaned down unsteadily and dug at the white with her aching fingers. After a few minutes, her fingers stopped aching. That was nice. But her hands weren't her hands anymore, they must be someone else's hands because she couldn't feel them attached to her arms. And her arms weren't really her arms either, except that little patch on the left that just kept stinging away.

After awhile, she dug far enough down that the sharp wind didn't cut her, and all around her was white and white and white.

She curled up, feeling the cold slowly fading away, feeling her body detach itself from her piece by piece. A few inches away, the knives cut through the wind and the sky grew darker. The cold started to go away in other parts of her body, except the cold must be taking her body parts with it because they were going away too. Her hips were gone, and her shoulders, and her cheeks and her throat and soon, her whole face was gone. Tenten tried to close her eyes, but she couldn't tell if she had or not, she couldn't feel them open or closed. And either way, all she could see was white and white and white…

Tenten floated in the whiteness.

An arm was flung out next to her. Distantly, she thought, _that was mine_. Now the whiteness had claimed it.

Except there was something black on it. Something small, and shiny, and black. It moved. _Oh_, thought Tenten. _There you are._ A little late though, she decided as the white began to leech into her mind and claim that, too. The stinging had stopped awhile ago.

* * *

Tenten woke up warm.

It took her awhile to process this knowledge, however. First she had to process that there was a body capable of warmth. Then she had to work out that this body was actually hers, and she was once again fully attached to it. Only once she'd reconciled herself to those facts could she then realize that she, in her body, was warm.

After that, things snapped into focus a little more quickly.

"Be still," Shino said from somewhere just above her head. "I will not hurt you."

She stopped struggling against the body that had her practically pinned to the ground and relaxed, willing her heartbeat to decelerate. "Sorry," she mumbled against his shirt. "Thought I was trapped."

"You were," he said calmly. "I found you almost buried in the snow almost two miles outside the village."

"Guess I went the wrong way," she mumbled, then, finally, opened her eyes.

They were back in the forge, wrapped up in all their blankets and coats in front of the roaring fire. Outside, Tenten could hear the wailing of the nightly storm winds against the reinforced walls. "How long?" she managed after a moment.

"Only a few hours," he replied. "How have you recovered so quickly? I've been using my own chakra and some of the emergency revival pills on you." He paused, then added in a strange tone she couldn't quite decipher, "I had to use my chakra to force your heart to start beating again."

"Oh," Tenten felt a faint flush in her cheeks, but she pressed her face against his chest where he couldn't see it. Then a little light went on in her brain. Shino wasn't wearing his overjacket. Or his underjacket, for that matter. Both were wrapped around her, as were his arms. Tenten was pressed against his thick, black shirt, which, while not exactly revealing anything more than his coats normally did, was still the least amount of clothing she'd ever seen him wear. And curled up against his chest with one leg wedged between his (yup, she could _feel_ it there, while her other leg was _holy shit_, draped over his _hip)_ definitely not respecting his space.

Tenten hesitated for a moment, uncertain how to react to this startling discovery. But hell, he'd put her there, right? And she was warmer than she'd been since she'd entered this frigid country. So she simply sighed a little and snuggled in closer, waiting to see how he would respond. As far as she could tell, he didn't.

"I killed Boss Yan," she told him. "We'll have to get out of here as soon as the storm clears."

"Yes," he replied, and Tenten took a moment to enjoy the sensation of _feeling _his voice against her skin. "Our plan was siderailed," he went on after a moment. "How so? A rival gang robbed the shipment, and made off with the knives before our scouts could intercept the wagon."

"We can still track 'em down," she murmured sleepily, feeling the warmth wrapping around her and pulling her back into comfortable sleep. "We'll still get a bunch of the black markets an' stuff."

"But the Blue Torch Council will get away," Shino said, and she could practically hear his frown. "In that objective, this mission failed."

"Sorry," she mumbled again.

"It is not your fault," he said sharply, shifting his body slightly. Tenten loosened her grip, expecting him to pull away, but after a brief pause, he merely resettled his arm under her head. Almost absently, his other hand ran up her back and back down again, tugging his coat into place around her shoulders. Tenten suppressed the little shudder of pleasure his dragging fingers sent racing down her spine and tried to pay strict attention to his words instead. "I should have had a backup for this possibility built into the plan," he was saying. "Or at the least, you should have had better warning before Boss Yan reached you."

"I did have warning, sort of," she told him. "Kam came screaming in here to tell me…" She trailed off as Shino stiffened, and she mentally reviewed his words. "Wait, "better" warning? You sent Kam to me, didn't you?"

"No," he said. "I merely made certain that he spent a great deal of time around Boss Yan."

"Knowing that the kid liked me, and would probably do exactly what he did if he thought I was in trouble with the gang." She twisted her head to look up at him. "I don't know if I think that's brilliant or just really manipulative." Shino said nothing, but up this close and without his collar, she could see the slight downward twist at the corners of his mouth. "Thanks, though," she added, and the tension in his face eased.

"So what happened to Kam?" She asked, unwilling suddenly to just drift back into sleep.

"He came back to me," he said. "He told me that he had seen you wandering off to the west, stumbling and talking to yourself. Which was fortunate, because I do not believe I would have picked up your trail in time without his direction."

"So he did stay and watch the fight," she said sadly. "I had hoped he wouldn't. That must have been him yelling."

Shino's arms tightened around her back. "Yelling?"

"Yeah. When the poison started to kick in, I was really out of it, but I remember someone screaming and pointing at me. That was why I went out into the snow," She said after a moment's thought. "I think I asked the person where you were, or thought I did, and they were pointing that way so, that's the way I went. I'm not sure what Kam - "

"Kam was not the one who directed you into the wilderness," Shino cut her off. "He came to find me almost as soon as Boss Yan was dead. He was afraid to come near you because you were…behaving oddly. But he did not approach nor speak to you."

"Oh," Tenten blinked. "Then who - ?"

"Yula," Shino said, in a voice so low she wouldn't have heard had she not been only a few inches from his mouth.

"Yula?"

"She was here," Shino explained in a suddenly flat, cold tone. "When Kam and I arrived. She claimed not to have seen you, that she had only just arrived and found her uncle dead. There was something off about her behavior, but I was more concerned with…other things at the time."

Tenten thought about this for awhile. Then, carefully, she said, "She's just a kid. And she probably wasn't actually trying to kill me or anything."

"She could have told me which way you went," Shino replied in that same flat, cold voice. Tenten wasn't a huge fan of the simpering fangirl either, but there was something brutal and condemning in Shino's voice that made her feel sorry for the girl.

"She's just a kid," Tenten said softly, reaching up one hand to touch Shino's cheek. "And it doesn't matter anyway. Not anymore." Shino, who had gone stock still when Tenten's fingers brushed his face, suddenly pulled back a few inches in order to look fully in her face. Tenten blinked up at her reflection in his black lenses and struggled to hide the uncertainty his scrutiny caused. "Right?" She asked after a long, uncomfortable pause.

"Hm," he grunted softly, but Tenten decided to take that as agreement.

"Okay then," she murmured, well aware that she was _very_ close to Shino's face now, and well, about as close as one could get to his body with clothes on.

Oh, great, she thought. Perfect timing for _that_ thought. Now her face was definitely flushed, and her heart had started to accelerate again. _Well, he's attractive_, she defended herself mentally. _And interesting, and a good shinobi, and he's taken great care of me all throughout this mission, and I bet that as much fun as he'd be to spar with, he'd probably be _more_ fun to kiss. If he let me. _

_Would he let me?_

_Only one way to find out._

And because it seemed like a good idea at the time, Tenten raised her head and pressed her lips against his.

Shino didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe. Tenten pulled back a fraction of an inch, then before she could think about it too much she leaned up again, this time a little more insistently. Maybe he just needed a moment to catch up to current events…

But he still wasn't reacting in the slightest. It was like kissing someone when they were asleep or unconscious. Or possibly dead, she thought with just a hint of resentment. She still couldn't even tell if he was breathing.

Shino pulled away. He did it slowly but definitely, as if he were trying to be polite about it.

Tenten stared at him for a moment. Then, in a small voice that she hated to hear come from her own mouth, said, "Sorry." She turned her face down (anything not to see the emotionless rejection on his) and started carefully to detangle herself from him.

Shino's arms and legs clamped down on her like iron, holding her in place. Tenten jumped and looked back up at him, half startled and half angry. What was his _deal_? Her eyes narrowed as he opened his mouth to speak; if he told her that she needed to stay where she was for the sake of her injuries or for warmth or anything, she was going to knock him halfway across the Glacier Country and then some. Damned if she would lay there wrapped up around him like a lover if he wasn't even slightest bit interested –

"Not yet," Shino said quietly. "And not like this."

Tenten stared at him. "Uh…what?"

"Relationships that are built solely on extreme circumstances such as this," Shino told her in a calm, slightly lecturing tone, "rarely succeed. And I know that neither you nor I are interested in a relationship based purely on physical proximity and battle relief."

"Battle relief," she repeated dumbly. That was a term they taught genin at the Academy; it was what many shinobi felt after a close brush with death, and had lead to many "inappropriate relations" between the shinobi involved. Tenten had once called it "hooray, we're still alive! sex" to her team, and had spent about an hour laughing at the bright red blush on Lee's face and the harassed expression on Neji's.

So Shino thought she was just reacting to the relief of still being alive by jumping the first available man? Well, that was totally insulting and presumptuous and…possibly just a tiny bit true.

Where he went wrong was the 'first available man' part. But she was in no mood to clarify that for him. At least not right now. Besides, he was still talking.

"However, relationships that start in extreme circumstances and are then pursued once things have settled into a more normal routine can do quite well, if time and care are given to them," Shino was saying, and without warning he ran his hand up her back and down again. This time Tenten didn't manage to hide the little shiver, and from the sudden quirk of his lips she knew he had felt it. Was he playing with her now? She wondered with a surge of anger. "Perhaps, then, this discussion may be continued at a later date. Because I believe that in the long run - "

"You don't have to spare my feelings, you know," Tenten cut him off in a harsher voice than she'd intended. Mentally she winced; she was not hiding her emotions very well. _Get a grip_, she ordered herself. _There's no need to make this ugly. He doesn't want you, get over it. You can still work together, and maybe be friends. Distant friends. Be polite._ "If you don't want me, then you don't want me," she told him bluntly. "I'll get over it."

_Oh wonderful_, she thought. _Very diplomatic. Tenten, you moron_.

The silence stretched between them for a long moment, and then Shino took a deep breath. Tenten tried not to resent the feel of his chest pushing against hers as she simultaneously tried not to enjoy it. She ended up failing miserably at both. _Damn._

"I see," Shino said at last, very softly.

And then he was kissing her like his life depended on it. Tenten flinched in surprise, tried to pull back, but his hand came up and tangled in her hair, and his other hand was trailing up her back, down her side, around the swell of her hip, and his mouth was so warm and wet and _demanding –_

_ I don't know what you want in the long run, _she thought hazily, _but this, at least, I understand._

Tenten gave in, kissing him back just as fiercely. She brushed her own hand up his ribs and around to the back of his neck, tracing a little pattern on the skin there with her fingertips, smiling mentally when the sensation made his breath catch slightly. She rolled her body against his next, delighting in the low, soft grunt he made in response. But before she could try anything else, he pulled away again, reaching up and catching her hand with his own and gently pulling it from his neck. He left his legs locked around hers, but he pulled his body back and away slightly, enough so that they were not pressed together, putting a few inches of space between.

Tenten allowed him to fold her hand against his chest, and she watched him through her eyelashes as he leaned his forehead against hers and took another long, deep breath. His face was as carefully controlled as ever, but his fingers were tight around hers and she could feel his heart racing under her other hand, still curled up against his chest.

"Okay," she said eventually. He lifted his head to look at her, waiting, and she laughed once, quietly. "Okay." She took a deep breath of her own, closing her eyes and relaxing into the blissfully warm cocoon of blankets, jackets, and body heat by the forge fire. Outside, the wind howled and clawed at the walls, but it would die out soon enough. The sun would rise, the day would begin, and they had a long, long way to go.

Tenten smiled. "We'll get there," she told him.

He brushed his lips against her forehead lightly, then she felt him settle back, still a few inches away but holding on to her nonetheless.

"Yes."


End file.
